‘My Self’ by Wergeland (Norwegian poet)

"My soul rejoices in the spring joys of Heaven

and shall partake of the Earth’s.

It glows more intensely than the spring stars, and it

Will soon blossom with the flowers.

Wondrous evening star. I bare my head.

Like a shower of crystals your radiance falls upon it.

There is a kinship between the soul and the stars".

Vigeland on Art

"People want to know 'the meaning'; they do not care about the rest. They want to be able to take out 'the idea' and 'the meaning' and put it back again like a book on a shelf. As though 'the meaning' were the most valuable aspect of a work of art. Look at the grandest of all works of art, Michelangelo's 'Dio crea il sole et la luna'.This work goves the impression of undiluted passion (aside from cracks, and so on) today as before, even though we all know that that was not how the solar system was created. - No, if one cannot allow oneself to be lifted, if one is not capable of being entranced by a work of art, transported by it, then one will never 'understand' it. People usually stand in front of a work of art with a stiff neck, rather than with bowed head. In fact, one must approach a piece of art with the mind of a child. Otherwise you will never understand it".

The power of cyberspace

"Community on a global scale.  Think of it: a cross-cultural, cross-functional,
globally dispersed team, linked by a continuity machine, driven by a common
enterprise vision, sharing in the common values of the emerging global culture,
and producing out of their cultural, organizational, and technical richness and
complexity a constant flow of wisdom.  A true global cosmopolis in cyberspace".

O'Hara-Devereaux & Johansen, 1994, p. 420 
Globalwork: Bridging Distance, Culture, and Time

Notes on Art Education

Cultural Sustainability, cultural engagement and visual culture plays a big role in development of values and the transferring of belief systems.

Visual art making acknowledges previous learning, personal meaning making, the real world and audience. It presents a platform for critical self reflection and a space to facilitate the ongoing mediation of society, cultural values and citizenship.

It would have been interesting to explore how art making affirms our consciousness about the world and self through creative engagement and communicative knowing. How can we develop students’ capacities to engage creatively with learning in environments that provide opportunities for thoughtful participatory understanding about self as a citizen of the world, or as a citizen of the world, or as a member of none’s national or local community. It is identifying and reflecting that an understanding of one’s world is dependant on knowing how contemporary society communicates its values and beliefs informed by economic, environmental, cultural and political forces. In a world dominated by the triumpth of the image, multi-modal practices and visual culture (Duncum, 2003), being visually literate is fundamental, and having the skills to creatively engage with communicative knowing within the dominant discourse is essential to the active construction of an individual’s values, beliefs and identities.

Source: Creative Engagements with Visual Culture, Communicative Knowing, Citizenship and ContemporaryVisual Art Education 
Kathryn Grushka, University of Newcastle

Three Dilemmas of Virtue

[...] Each of the three older Pendawas are commonly held to display a different sort of emotional-moral dilemma, centering one or another of the central Javanese virtues. Yudistira, the eldest, is too compassionate. He is unable to rule his country effectively because when asks him for his land, his wealth, his food, he simply gives it out of pity, leaving himself powerless, poor, or starving. His enemies continually take advantage of his mercifulness to deceive him and escape his justice.

Bima, on the other hand, is single-minded, steadfast. Once he forms and intention, he follows it out straight to its conclusion; he doesn’t look aside, doesn’t turn off or idle along the way – “he goes north”. As a result, he is often rash, and blunders into difficulties he could as well have avoided.

Arjuna, the third brother, is perfectly just. His goodness comes from the fact that he opposes evil, that he shelters people from injustice, that he is coolly courageous in fighting for the right. But he lacks a sense of mercy, of sympathy for wrong-doers. He applies a divine moral code to human activity, and so he is often cold, cruel, or brutal in the name of justice.

The resolution of these three dilemmas of virtue is the same: mystical insight. With a genuine comprehension of the realities of the human situation, a true perception of the ultimate rasa, comes the ability to combine Yudistira’s compassion, Bima’s will to action, and Arjuna’s sense of justice into a truly moral outlook, an outlook which brings an emotional detachment and an inner peace in the midst of the world of flux, yet permits and demands a struggle for order and justice within such a world. And it is such a unification that unshakable solidarity among the Pendawas in the play, continually rescuing one another from the defects of their virtues, clearly demonstrates.

Book: The Interpretation of Cultures, 1973

Author: Clifford Geertz

Chapter: Ethos, World View, and the Analysis of Sacred Symbols p. 139.

Fundamentals of intercultural communication

“The many factors that divide us are actually much more superficial then those we share. Despite all of the things that differentiate us – race, language, religion, gender, wealth and so on – we are all equal concerning our fundamental humanity”. Dalai Lama

It is more important to concentrate on what unites humanity rather then divides. All of the imagined customs, religion, language, cultures, were all invented by us, humans, to differentiate ourselves from each other, but also to make it easier for ourselves to make sense of our complex world. They are all models, artificial paradigms that direct people through life.

By studying intercultural communication, we can help reduce xenophobia that exists across cultures. We also share inter-nationally and inter-culturally our love for beauty and love.  By using our existing international language of love and beauty (i.e. art, music) it can provide us with a common ground to establish an understanding across cultures. Humans are incredible creatures. They share similar values everywhere, but name them differently.

Xenophobia is defined as “an unreasonable Fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange. It comes from the Greek words ξένος (xenos), meaning “stranger,” “foreigner,” and φόβος (phobos), meaning “fear.”

Comments from Paulo Coelho’s blog:

“Life means adventure, change, things that not everybody has the courage to face and accept. When one sees someone who is unfamiliar, a subconscious fear springs up” (Ruth)

“Xenophobia isn’t just the fear of strangers, it’s being afraid of what happens between different generations. Most people are afraid of today, they prefer to live in the past. My country (Russia) is an excellent example of this”. (Dasha)

“Here in Denmark we have a festival that lasts about a week and attracts 100,000 strangers to celebrate life, share common interests and learn from the differences. People embrace for no reason except being on the same path, they sing and get drunk together. When the festival is over, a strange atmosphere takes over the town again, and strangers are once more seen as a threat”. (Warrior of Running Water)

“People in my country (Poland) lived through the tyranny of Hitler and the Soviet oppression, and they don’t seem to have learned anything. It terrifies me to see people who experienced the horrors of Nazism behaving the same way today, avoiding everything that is unknown or different. The worst of it all is that they use religion to justify their acts, arguing that all those who aren’t Christians should be banished from society. This blind faith is worse than having no faith at all”. (Radek)

The definition of home.

What is home? For some it is a house, for others - people.  For others it is where them and their loved ones are. No mater where in the world, no matter what cultures they are endorsed into. As long as they have their close ones next to them, they are at home.

Home for us is where we feel free, where we feel needed, where we feel the belonging. Home can be anywhere where there is a feeling of warmth and genuinity from people who surround us. We want a place where we can be accepted the way we are and do not have to constantly prove ourselves. We want a place with occasional sad faces, we don’t want to be only surrounded by fake smiles. We want to be able to read into people’s minds, their worries, try to understand them, try to help them.

We want a place where we can have time to care about other people. We also want a decent level of life, we want some certainty in the future where we see a good future for our next generation. We want to be living in communities where there is a sharing of values, where people have a common goal to pursue. Decent life does not cost much, if we construct it in a clever way, it can cost nothing. Money were invented by us people anyway, as a product of exchange. It can be replaced by the sharing of knowledge and capabilities.

We can all feel home wherever we are.